Tribute, game over in a flash

The season's third sellout crowd at Target Center arrived early Friday night to stand and bid both welcome and farewell to the Timberwolves' past. At game's end, they stood and cheered its future -- only to see a remade franchise lose to the Boston Celtics on a last-second play for the second time in two weeks.

Two weeks ago, Kevin Garnett, the aforementioned past, made the game-saving defensive play that secured a one-point victory and then snapped his jersey in an emotional outburst that irked some Wolves fans.

On Friday, Leon Powe's frantic lay-in at the buzzer delivered Boston an 88-86 victory -- awfully similar to their 87-86 victory at home Jan. 25 -- that might have left Garnett popping the lapels to his peacoat in joyous celebration down in the visitors locker room, if anyone had seen him after his brief pregame greeting to the adoring crowd.

"Hurt a lot," Al Jefferson, the Wolves' new star, said in a terse postgame address. "I'm in a real bad mood right now."

With Garnett out because of an abdominal injury suffered in that Jan. 25 game, the Wolves led the league's best team missing its best player by 11 early in the third quarter, trailed by four with three minutes left in the game and were tied with 28.9 seconds left.

When Marko Jaric's open three-pointer missed in the final 10 seconds, Wolves teammate Craig Smith corralled the rebound and tried to fling it to safety as he fell out of bounds. The ball ended up with Celtics star Ray Allen, who rushed the length of the floor and pushed up a contested layup that missed.

However, Powe followed behind and all alone nestled it into the basket as the scoreboard clock expired.

Afterward, Smith said he tried to save the ball, and the game, on instinct and called the loss "pretty much my fault."

The game officials consulted video replay to ensure the ball passed through the hoop with fractions of a second still left on the clock.

"We don't want to see them anymore, that's for sure," Boston coach Doc Rivers said.

The Celtics, as they did two weeks before, effectively kept the ball out of Jefferson's hands most of the game, until forward Kendick Perkins, Jefferson's close pal and defensive pest, left the game in the second half because of a strained shoulder.

Jefferson, the centerpiece of the five players acquired from Boston for Garnett over the summer, scored 10 of his 18 points in the final quarter, including eight consecutive for the Wolves down the stretch, but once again the Wolves came up one possession short. Last time, they led by a point and had possession of the ball with 23 seconds left and lost.

"Our guys feel like we had them beat twice and we're 0-2," Wolves coach Randy Wittman said. "That's the bottom line. We didn't make enough plays to finish them off in both games."

Garnett's long-anticipated return to Target Center for the first time since he left in the biggest trade for one player in NBA history was brief and heartfelt.

He appeared from the tunnel that leads to the visitors' locker room moments before the game's opening tap. As the first fans got the glimpse of that shaved head, they rose in unison and delivered a 75-second ovation that Garnett -- the 2004 NBA MVP who played for the Wolves his first 12 pro seasons -- acknowledged with the wave of his hand and a couple of reverential bows.

Then he was gone back down the tunnel to watch the game from the Celtics' dressing room, where he insists on watching games. He avoided camera crews waiting for his arrival Friday evening by slipping into the arena through the NBA City restaurant at the other end and did not talk to reporters.

By the time his teammates fully clamored back into that locker room after winning the game, Garnett reportedly already was waiting on the team bus for the ride to the airport and the flight back to Boston.

After the game, somebody told Wolves forward Ryan Gomes -- another one of the players acquired from Boston in the Garnett trade -- that the hometown fans stood for the franchise's past at the game's start and its future at the end.

"It goes hand in hand," Gomes said. "He was what they knew for 12 seasons and they wanted to show their appreciation for the work he's done. The future is in our hands now."